GC and vitamin D deficiency: Apart from this, the high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in our study population is in line with previous reports and may be due to cirrhosis-associated factors such as low sunlight exposure, poor nutrition, low levels of vitamin D binding protein (DBP), increased 25(OH)D catabolism, and interruption of the enterohepatic circulation with reduced intestinal vitamin D absorption which is a bile-acid dependent process [18].